What is Swagbucks, Scam or Legit? A 2015 Review of Swagbucks

With over 4 million registered members, Swagbucks.com, a Los Angeles based company, has become one of the fastest growing online rewards programs, where members can earn cash and prizes for doing virtually anything they already do online, from watching videos, surfing the web, and playing games to shopping, performing searches with Swagbucks search engine and more.

Yet, with all that stuff behind it, lots of people are concerned about the so called “Swagbucks scam” and complaints against the company. So, they are wondering if SB is indeed a trustworthy loyalty program or just another online scam.

Of course, there are lots of reviews written about SB as well. But as always, I wanted to see for myself. So, I signed up, and after a long time being with them, I decided to write my version of Swagbucks review, which is what you are reading now.

What is Swagbucks?

My hat off to their marketing department people. I mean, not only they came up with a great concept to base the site on, they also gave it a great memorable name. They created a very unique and unusual reward site, different from other rewards programs! I actually visited their blog and left a comment their, praising them for it, lol.

Any way, here is how this site works:

For starters, you simply sign up for the site, that is if you are 13 years of age or older, and live on either the US, UK, or Canada.

Then, whenever you want to search online, you simply use their search engine to do it. This search engine, basically displays results pulled from Google and Ask.com. So, you do get good answers for your search queries, as the results are from two of the most reliable search engines.

Every once in a while, during your search, you win what’s called a “Swag buck”. Each Swag Buck equals to a little less than 1 US cent (¢). And according to them, how often and how much you win is totally random.

I should mention that the site started as a search engine that rewarded members for using their engine. And that is what they are known for, a “get paid to search” site. But as SB began to grow bigger and attract more members, they have expended their site, and are now offering lots of other options for earning cash and rewards, which includes playing games, filling out online surveys, as well as watching SBTV (SB’s official online video channel), and more.

Ways to Earn Swag Bucks

They offer a variety of ways for members to earn free cash and prizes. And I am glad they do! Because with just their search engines, you can only earn a few Swag bucks a day, which equals to almost nothing. So, having other options, make singing up with this site worth your while.

Search Engine:You simply do your searches there, and if luck is on your side, you win anywhere from 1 to 1000 Swag Bucks (SB) throughout the day. Some people try to use boats to perform searches all day long in hopes of increasing their chances of winning, but beware that they will ban your account, if they find you are using “bots” to do automated searches.

Toolbar: Here is a tip – instead of loging to your account everyday to do searches, you install the toolbar and search and earn from any open browser.

Tasks:This is a lot like Amazon Turk tasks where you do simple tasks like collecting important data for companies, transcribing audio, etc. The difference here is that instead of earning pennies like on MTurk, you earn Swag Bucks. This section of SB is actually powered by the famous crowdsourcing company, CrowdFlower.

Special Offers:These are offers from different companies who are trying to promote their business. You can earn virtually any number of Swag Bucks by completing such offers.

Surveys: SB also partners with various market research companies in helping them to conduct online surveys. As a member, you can earn Swag Bucks for every survey you participate in. Obviously, the longer a survey takes, the bigger the pay out is.

Swagbucks TV: It’s almost the same as YouTube, but with one big difference – here you actually earn 3 Swag Bucks for watching every 10 videos. However, you are limited to earning 75 SB a day for watching videos.

Games: Who wouldn’t want to get paid online to play games! Here you can receive Swag Bucks for playing Flash games.

Shopping: With SB’s shopping, for every dollar you spend you earn a set amount of Swag Bucks. Their shopping portal include big name stores such as Apple, Walmart, Kmart and many others. You can also use their coupon codes (provided by coupons.com) when shopping, which will earn you additional SB’s.

Daily Goals: To keep members motivated and active, they display a meter on your account dashboard, with a number in it as your Swag Bucks earning goal for the current day. If you reach that goal, you will receive bonus Swag Bucks.

Swag Codes: These are strings of text that are “hidden” throughout the Swag Bucks network. You can earn Swag Bucks by finding these texts and entering them into an especial box on the front page.

Trade-in: Here is something you don’t see on other get paid to sites like CashCrate – SB actually lets you exchange video games, consoles and books for Swag Bucks. Cool, isn’t it!

Referral Program: Like virtually all other get paid to sites, this one also has a referral program, where you can earn more by referring other people. The cool thing is that when you refer someone, for every search win they receive you earn matching Swag Bucks, up to a maximum of 1000.

Redeeming Your Earnings

Swag Store:Here you can redeem your earnings for cool prizes and gift certificate from different offline and online stores, such as Amazon.com, Gap, Walmart, etc.Discount Shopping:Another great feature of SB is that it has partnered up with Entertainment.com to offer discounts and savings to active members. In order to qualify for these discounts and deals, you must use your Swag Bucks to pay for purchases.Swagstakes:They have special sweepstakes with different prizes. You can buy entries to these sweepstakes to win prizes which can also include more Swag Bucks, which if you win, will be credited to your account.

Bottom Line

To sum it all up, Swagbucks.com is a legitimate online rewards program and not a scam. Having said that, if you are looking for a site where you can make a living off of, you may want to look elsewhere.

It simply is not possible to make a living off of this site, as many would like to claim. Non the less, if you are looking to get some free money while having some fun on the Internet, you should sign up with Swagbucks.

If you like getting paid for surveys, and are going to join only one site, go with Ipsos-iSay. Ipsos is the most fun and well-paying panel.
Give it a try to see how you like it. It is free anyway!

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